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[BlueSweatshirt]

http://jackedtech.blogspot.com/2009/12/results.html

You can view the results of what people said to my survey here.
Survey is still open-- It's not too late to throw in what you have to say.

[powly]

That kind of sums up why SSBM>SSBB. SSBM is mostly about being in the right time and while there is a lot happening, it's not happening so fast and most of it doesn't kill you instantly if your enemy gets to it first.

Pretty please, don't use the acronym "SSB" if you're not talking about the original one, it confuses me :<

[SidM]

Hit:
Fighters who play differently, having different skill types / sets.
Miss:
Fighters who clone each other, except for certain moves (Mortal Kombat lower than 5, I'm looking at you ~~ also Brawl)

[Delmore]

Depth and balance. I like when there's lots of different techniques for the player to take advantage of which are universal between characters, such as parrying like in Street Fighter III, or emergency rolling like in King of Fighters. It adds a lot more strategy and thought into the game when options like that are open to the player at all times. What I don't like is when things are left really loose in a fighting game, easily enabling the game to be broken by players. While I have nothing wrong with combos being accessible and easy to players to perform, they should have strict limits enforced on them just so no one finds a way to essentially break the game. Combos shouldn't really be lengthy either, because when one player is delivering all the hits, the opponent has to sit back and wait patiently for them to finish until they can finally move again, which is no fun at all when combos are lasting 20 seconds.

Lastly, character rosters shouldn't have lots of clones, characters with bland designs, or be plagued by anime girls who fill over half of the roster. Melty Blood is probably an example of how bland and how wrong you can go with a fighting game.

[inkBot]

I'm just gonna list some of my favourites and explain why I like them.

Soul Calibur 2/3/4
What I like about Soul Calibur is that I feel it's the one fighting game that's got 3D right, without a compromising control scheme as a result. Moving around on the stage feels very natural and it actually does matter where you stand when you attack (ring-out, throws and such). If you played Ivy in SC2 (I did) you could literally dominate everyone else, except a better Ivy player. I loved playing Ivy in SC2 but she was nerfed in 3 and 4, because she was overpowered. Apprentice in 4 was a big miss for me, as well as the so-called "story" mode.

Guilt Gear XX / BlazBlue
These two get the same spot because they both provide the same aspects that makes me like them. Speed and being easy to pick up and play. I like fast gameplay, and boy do BB provide there. Each character has a quick aspect about them (although the games also boast two incredibly slow characters) and though there is a lot of depth to be found, the game is still easy to just play and enjoy for new players, something essential for attracting new players.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike
I started playing this only a few years ago. At first it looks deceitfully easy, but when you get into it and start doing parries on purpose the game takes on a deeper aspect.

So

Hit: Easy to pick up and play, and have fun with, for beginners.

Miss: Overpowered characters. (This can break an otherwise flawless game)

[CosmicMaher]

It would be really interesting to play a fighting game with procedural stuff, provided it had a monstrous system of balancing the possible results.

[the_dannobot]

I like fighting games to be CRUNCHY.  When one character punches another, they should look like they really want to hurt the other guy and the hit should feel visceral.  Usually fighting games will have a some characters feel crunchy, but then others feel floaty or soggy.  

Online play is required!  If the online is poorly implemented (laggy, encourages rage-quitting) it's the same as having no online play.  For a good example, King of Fighters 12 is a great game that no one plays because the netplay is crap.

The character roster should be well-balanced.  If the characters are too heavily tiered, the gameplay becomes rubbish at high level.  For an example Akuma in sf2 is usually banned from tournament play because he's too overpowered.

The player should never get "lost".  For example, if there is a bunch of unnecessary crap going on in the background it can cause the characters to blend in and be hard to see (I'm looking at you, SSBB!)  Also, games where one player goes off the screen if the characters are too far apart (looking at you MvC2!)

Only necessary information should be presented to the player in the HUD.  I need health bars, timer, and super meter.  I don't need guard bars, stun meter, tension gauge, player score, win-loss records, etc.  (srsly No one cares about "score" anyway!)

I like when the move sets are simple to do.  direction+button is perfectly fine, with maybe quartercircle+button to do super moves.  Games should be easy to learn and difficult to master, yet fighting games still have execution requiring 720 motions or 1/60th of a second timing.  Making execution too difficult will turn off most new players.  

These are just some of the fighting game elements off the top of my head, I have pages and pages of good vs. bad fighting game design.  Are you planning on making a fighting game or something?

[s0]

I like when the move sets are simple to do.  direction+button is perfectly fine, with maybe quartercircle+button to do super moves.  Games should be easy to learn and difficult to master, yet fighting games still have execution requiring 720 motions or 1/60th of a second timing.  Making execution too difficult will turn off most new players. 

I agree. Memorizing combos sucks. Also, in some fighting games, the timing is so picky, it's almost impossible to get some of the moves right every time, even if you know them.

[Kadoba]

I think my biggest beef with SSB is that it seems really unfocused. Stuff is happening all over the place, like the smash orbs and items, that it's hard to have much of a classical timing fight of skill instead of just jumping around a lot trying to get items.

Most tournament rules disable the items and limit fighting to 1v1 or 2v2. Certain stages are also banned. When you strip all the chaos away it really becomes an amazing game.

[s0]

Well I dunno but for me it's an amazing game because of the chaos. 

[Kadoba]

I guess I sort of implied that it's not a good game anyway. That's not what I meant. I think it goes back to personal taste. I know a lot of my friends won't play tourney style  because they say that's not the way it's meant to be played and it's not as fun. And then there's people who just refuse to acknowledge SSB as a true competitive fighting game because of the spastic style. The latter is who I was trying to address.

[Theotherguy]

This is mainly for personal research, but it'll hopefully turn into an interesting discussion nonetheless.

The in-prompt-to question is simple:
For you, what is hit-and-miss in fighting games? In other words, what do you like, and what do you not?

Feel free to reference specific games, or be as vague as you'd like.

Hate:
Combos of any kind.
Combat with two players facing off fighting one another with camera rotation.
Overly sexual fighters.
"Hit Points"

Like:
Characters with completely different move sets.
Big stages.
Ranged weapons.
Jumping around.

In other words, the only fighter I like is SSB. I absolutely cannot stand the likes of Street Figter, Virtua Fighter, Soul Caliber, or any of that. I find them extremely boring.

[Theotherguy]

I think my biggest beef with SSB is that it seems really unfocused. Stuff is happening all over the place, like the smash orbs and items, that it's hard to have much of a classical timing fight of skill instead of just jumping around a lot trying to get items.

Most tournament rules disable the items and limit fighting to 1v1 or 2v2. Certain stages are also banned. When you strip all the chaos away it really becomes an amazing game.

No, it doesn't. It completely neuters the game.

[gunmaggot]

More games should be like Super Muscle Bomber.  If Smash Bros was more like Super Muscle Bomber I would probably never play anything else.

[Alevice]

I'm personally fond of typical fighter games that do certain original things in favor of a more tactical combat. Prime example personally si the Samurai Showdown series. I find it lovely that a signle well hit blow can almost kill you, much like it would be in real life. It becomes then a game of wits, rather than just button sequences.

I do love my frantic games, which is why I love Killer Instinct combo system when played at fast speed. The matches go fucking crazy.

Nothing beats Vampire Savior, though. For being such a standard fighting game, all special sequences and such are obsecenely easy to pull off, the game has no pauses whatsoever, its is lovingly chaotic and over the top.

And yes, I am not being coherent. I balme my insomnia

[shig]

I think there's relatively very little innovation in fighting games. I feel like the generic control scheme could have a major overhaul but apparently it just doesn't happen because people are really too used to the old Street Fighter standard controls.

Occasionally, there are games like SSB, Jojo's Bizarre and the Touhou spin-off fighting games that change the controls and gameplay a LOT, but these are really rare.

[Alevice]

Exluding platformers and shmups (if that), pretty much most major genres are like that. RTSes, RPGs, Fighting games, 3d free roaming even.

[GreyGriffin]

A fighting game should be accessible.

Look at a game like Soul Calibur III, Bushido Blade (either one), or Tekken 6(!!) and you'll see combat systems that have evolved beyond levels of easily reduced complexity.  A newbie standing at the joystick (Forgive the anachronism) would be lucky to execute any move in Tekken without foreknowledge of the series or a strategy guide.

I think that this has been and remains the Smash Bros. secret ingredient.  Anybody can pick up and play.  As a previous poster suggested, the characters seem responsive, and you can learn by experimentation and simple play, rather than dedicated study.  While balance and nuanced characters come a close second, the ability to play a game and have fun with it even before you've mastered it makes the difference.

You shouldn't have to work to turn a virtual high school nerd beatdown simulator into a game.

Also...  hi!  First post evar.

[alspal]

A fighting game should be accessible.

Of course, and many of them are.

Look at a game like Soul Calibur III, Bushido Blade (either one), or Tekken 6(!!) and you'll see combat systems that have evolved beyond levels of easily reduced complexity.  A newbie standing at the joystick (Forgive the anachronism) would be lucky to execute any move in Tekken without foreknowledge of the series or a strategy guide.

lol. You need a guide to press a button and see what happens? Wow.
The fighters you mentioned are easy to pick up and play, you press a button and the character kicks. However, the games are also kept interesting due to the complex moves that can be performed.

I think that this has been and remains the Smash Bros. secret ingredient.  Anybody can pick up and play.  As a previous poster suggested, the characters seem responsive, and you can learn by experimentation and simple play,

As was the case with the previous fighter games you mentioned.

rather than dedicated study. 

It's just a different kind of 'study' as Smash Bros complexity doesn't rely entirely on the move set.

[GreyGriffin]

I am inclined to disagree.  The nature of modern fighting games is highly invested in the metagame.  I learned to play on Soul Blade on the PS1.  This game was intuitive.  Moves were relatively simple, and combos were executed by (gasp) doing moves in sequence.

In Soul Calibur, while yes, you can swing your weapon and you can kick, you can't fight without foreknowledge of the metagame.  Because of the way characters launch and fall, you can't really execute a combination without either knowing an elaborate combo move or have juggling skill.

(Aside- I hate juggling.  This is why "grounded" combat is not a must for me.  The ability to fight airborne negates the frustration of being victimized by juggling.)

Now, this is based on limited experience with the game.  I do not own it, but I have played with friends, and as a person who has played Soul Blade extensively, I am disappointed with the direction that the series has taken.

Modern fighting games have focused almost exclusively on the metagame, developing tighter and tighter controls over specific combinations of moves and mechanics that define upper tier play.  This tends to make lower-tier (dare I say casual) play stiff and awkward, as characters are designed to move a mile a minute. 

I am not certain that this is a deliberate sacrifice.